Toward a Better Kralorela

[Akhôrahil]

2 hours ago, Leingod said:

"human sacrifice"

That's such an ugly word. We prefer "enhanced worship procedures".

[Shiningbrow]

12 hours ago, JonL said:

Which brings me around to this: If we don't get some Asian/Asian-descended writers involved, we're going to keep screwing Kralorela up , no matter how well intentioned or well researched the attempt.

I have to vehemently disagree with this statement! 

It presumes that unless one has the blood and ancestry, one cannot understand history, myths, culture, etc. This has been time and again shown to be false... Just as it is not true that everyone of a particular people (culture, ethnicity, etc) always knows everything about said culture etc. This is easily demonstrable... Ask anyone, anything!

What we really need is someone well-versed in the history, myths, tales, etc.

[Shiningbrow]

9 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

No one seems to have these same stereotype-neuroses about Sub-Saharan African cultures in Glorantha

Actually not true... It just may not have been voiced. I'm sure if a thread was started, you'd hear a few gripes (mine included... But I honestly don't know much about the actual cultures to comment intelligently. Sure, that's never stopped me before, but... :p)

[Shiningbrow]

7 hours ago, davecake said:

And one obvious difference between Kralorela and China is in the nature of the Emperors. Chinese Emperors were political dynasties competing through intrigue and war. Kralorelan Emperors are immortal gods replaced only through massive magical crisis. I think Tibetan rule by successive avatars of Avalokitesvara comes a bit closer than Chinese Emperors, but really it is a situation unique to Glorantha. The Emperors may not really rule Kralorela, but rather be supported by the state for religious and magical reasons. 

However, it does mimic the "Mandate from Heaven" idea that's been around for a while... You are right in the mundane and historical sense, but the myth is still basically the same.

[Shiningbrow]

2 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

That's such an ugly word. We prefer "enhanced worship procedures".

"Complete bodily involvement acts of dedication"

[Shiningbrow]

13 hours ago, JonL said:

 

Go over here and read what Chris Chinn (aka Bankuei) has to say about this sort of thing, he even calls out the Guide specifically.

Now look back and read The Blood Monsoon, which he wrote before frustration with the stereotypes etc. soured him on Glorantha altogether.

Ummm... I'm going to the same page with both links... 

[JonL]

3 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

I have to vehemently disagree with this statement! 

It presumes that unless one has the blood and ancestry, one cannot understand history, myths, culture, etc. This has been time and again shown to be false...

An outsider who studies deeply can indeed learn quite a bit, and even sometimes do great work. I have a Euro-descended friend who writes mystery novels set in 19th Century China and, thanks to having spent years living over there, she manages to not be inadvertently hurtful. The key part there is the years spent living with and really getting to know the people she's writing about. An outsider can also notice things that insiders might take for granted, fresh eyes bringing new insights to bear. This too has value.

However, an outsider is almost always going to overlook some subtleties, misconstrue certain contexts, not see the significance of how insiders respond to things, etc. that are readily apparent to someone who has grown up in a culture or navigated the intersection between two cultures. An outside expert who has learned the language and done the deep dives into primary sources and noteworthy commentaries thereon, and can even get an approving nod when ordering off-the-menu at the mom & pop restaurant in an ethnic-neighborhood still does not have the same perspective as someone who has spent a lifetime being alternately fetishized, stigmatized, erased, and stereotyped because of their ancestry and cultural background. I can keep up with my Vietnamese boss when he takes us out to his favorite joints, but I don't have first-hand experience with being shamed/ostracized in the school cafeteria because my parents pack "weird" and "gross" stuff for my lunch. 

To be clear, I'm not saying that only insiders should write about their stuff. Rather, we should recognize that even an expert outsider should at ideally want to collaborate with a knowledgeable insider who can bring that perspective to the table. Outsiders should be conscious of  and respectful that they're playing with someone else's toys, and welcome input from insiders who can let them know when they're about to break something and point out cool things that the outsider is missing.

3 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Just as it is not true that everyone of a particular people (culture, ethnicity, etc) always knows everything about said culture etc. This is easily demonstrable... Ask anyone, anything!

I'm not suggesting that Chaosium grab a random Chinatown resident off the street, any more than they would ask my father to write a Deep Ones of Lake Erie CoC supplement just because he happens to be from Ohio. Rather, adding the perspective someone like Agatha Cheng, Bankuei, or similarly appropriate choice should be a no-brainer in terms of making the best work possible and to hopefully avoid repeating past mistakes.

Heck, if you were working on a Voormain book, wouldn't you at the very least ask Jeff Okomoto to look over a draft and give feedback? 

Edited July 26, 2019 by JonL

[Sir_Godspeed]

As this discussion progresses into some potentially personally sensitive areas (ie- name-dropping named individuals, including people who might be lurking, discussions of cultural sensitivity, etc.), I hope we'll keep continue to generally assume that everyone involved here, however passionate, has honest intentions. Hopefully this isn't considered backseat modding.

On another note, I agree with the comments about internal power balance plays by @metcalph, and as @scott-martin mentioned, the Guide does hint towards a more tumultous history than what the current regime wants to admit (I just wish we had more examples of how that plays out in daily life and such.)

On the topic of crime lords and secret brotherhoods (a common trope of orientalist literature), it might be noteworthy that while this trope feels out of place in a Bronze Age-inspired setting, we DO HAVE crime cults in Central Genertela as well, whether Thanatar, Vivamort, Krasht, Ogres or whoever. (This is outside what I'm read up on, but that's the impression I'm getting), so it's not entirely inappropriate for Glorantha itself.

Edited July 26, 2019 by Sir_Godspeed

[Jeff]

23 minutes ago, JonL said:

An outsider who studies deeply can indeed learn quite a bit, and even sometimes do great work. I have a Euro-descended friend who writes mystery novels set in 19th Century China and, thanks to having spent years living over there, she manages to not be inadvertently hurtful. The key part there is the years spent living with and really getting to know the people she's writing about. An outsider can also notice things that insiders might take for granted, fresh eyes bringing new insights to bear. This too has value.

However, an outsider is almost always going to overlook some subtleties, misconstrue certain contexts, not see the significance of how insiders respond to things, etc. that are readily apparent to someone who has grown up in a culture or navigated the intersection between two cultures. An outside expert who has learned the language and done the deep dives into primary sources and noteworthy commentaries thereon, and can even get an approving nod when ordering off-the-menu at the mom & pop restaurant restaurant in an ethnic-neighborhood still does not have the same perspective as someone who has spent a lifetime being alternately fetishized, stigmatized, erased, and stereotyped because of their ancestry and cultural background. I can keep up with my Vietnamese boss when he takes us out to his favorite joints, but I don't have first-hand experience with being shamed/ostracized in the school cafeteria because my parents pack "weird" and "gross" stuff for my lunch. 

To be clear, I'm not saying that only insiders should write about their stuff. Rather, we should recognize that even an expert outsider should at ideally want to collaborate with a knowledgeable insider who can bring that perspective to the table. Outsiders should be conscious of  and respectful that they're playing with someone else's toys, and welcome input from insiders who can let them know when they're about to break something and point out cool things that the outsider is missing.

I'm not suggesting that Chaosium grab a random Chinatown resident off the street, any more than they would ask my father to write a Deep Ones of Lake Erie CoC supplement because he happens to be from Ohio. Rather, adding the perspective someone like Agatha Cheng, Bankuei, or similarly appropriate choice should be a no-brainer in terms of making the best work possible and to hopefully avoid repeating past mistakes.

Heck, if you were working on a Voormain book, wouldn't you at the very least ask Jeff Okomoto to look over a draft and give feedback? 

Vormain is very much Sandy's creation and Kralorela is Greg's. Keep in mind, Kralorela is not China - it is the mythic China that worked itself into Greg's imagination.

[Joerg]

51 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

10 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

No one seems to have these same stereotype-neuroses about Sub-Saharan African cultures in Glorantha

Actually not true... It just may not have been voiced. I'm sure if a thread was started, you'd hear a few gripes (mine included... But I honestly don't know much about the actual cultures to comment intelligently. Sure, that's never stopped me before, but... :p)

Given that a majority of the Glorantha fans is of central and western European descent, almost all of Glorantha is cultural appropriation. And, to be honest, even if I had say some Magyar ancestry - the most likely case of extra-European ancestry for me - me writing about horse nomads would still be cultural appropriation, as I have inherited no cultural traditions. Writing about Vikings or mesolithic reindeer hunters might be acceptable as they lived within 100 km from where I was born and are part of the cultural heritage here, but neither are very likely to show up in my genetic make-up, except maybe some Vikings through my presumed Hugenot ancestors.

Also, the entire Pamaltelan culture only makes some material loans from a number of African stereotypes. Fonrit with the blue-skinned and grey-skinned (Thinokan) foreigners mixed into Doraddi-descended Laskali and its Vadeli-derived slavocracy is way different from say Madagascar or South Africa with a similar external admixture. The brutality of the society in Fonrit does have the feel of King Leopold's Kongo, though.

In the end, we aren't that different from the God Learner Seshnegi who imported an entire city from Kralorela into their lands (presumably somewhere in the Pasos region, and lost with the 1049 upheaval).

 

7 hours ago, Jeff said:

If you read the Guide it is pretty clear that the "eternal Kralorela" as it is claimed, probably dates to the downfall of Sheng Seleris at the latest, or the ascension of Godunya at the earliest.

Dara Happa and Seshnela have about the same claim to continuity. The Kingdom of Night may have had the longest record of continuity.

The demise of Yanoor and the False Dragon Ring takeover may have been a worse break than the Seleric conquest. We have no information how much of an upheaval earlier changes in the emperor were (outside of those when the new Emperor wrestled the country away from the Antigods).

7 hours ago, Jeff said:

And there are plenty of hints of what the Emperor is actually expected to do.

The Dragon Emperor acts as the focus of rebirth for both the dragonewt and the human population.The main difference between the Emperor and the Egyptian Pharaohs is the length of time between ascensions.

But while we're at it: Were the dragonewts able to undergo rebirth under the False Dragons' Ring, or was their rebirth delayed until 1124?

 

Cannibalism actually is tied to Chern Durel aka Ignorance, and was opposed by Daruda. (Revealed Mythologies has about twice as much text as the Guide on Daruda, and presumably on the other emperors, too.) While suppressed, it obviously never entirely faded away.

[JonL]

2 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Ummm... I'm going to the same page with both links... 

15 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Think you got the Blood Monsoon link on both references. 

Ah, copypasta fail, sorry. Here is the link to Anna Kreider interviewing Bankuei about Orientalism in RPGs. Remember, he's not some 20 year old who just took his first Sociology class ranting on tumblr,  he used to be an active and enthusiastic member of the Glorantha community in the early 2000s, and has written a great deal of solid, constructive, and insightful material about RPGs and associated culture.

Another part of the uncountable cost of failing to constructively address or engage with this stuff is the loss to the community of the contributions, whether relating to their background or not, of great people we drive away. Imagine if Moon Design had hired Chris ten years ago and given him the keys to clean-up Kralorela. If he hadn't gotten fed-up with hearing about "an autocratic Oriental society" and walked away, the guy who wrote this, this, and this might today be working with Ian on QuestWorlds. 

That's all the past now, we can't undo it. What we can do though is take the opportunity to learn from it and do better in the future.

[Shiningbrow]

1 hour ago, JonL said:

An outsider who studies deeply can indeed learn quite a bit, and even sometimes do great work. I have a Euro-descended friend who writes mystery novels set in 19th Century China and, thanks to having spent years living over there, she manages to not be inadvertently hurtful. The key part there is the years spent living with and really getting to know the people she's writing about. An outsider can also notice things that insiders might take for granted, fresh eyes bringing new insights to bear. This too has value.

I'm not disagreeing with the content, but I do with the context.

I think it would be extremely difficult to find anyone who is not a devoted scholar on the subject to help out with a bronze age China. Modern Chinese are as far from "Kralorela" as most of us are from our very distant ancestors.

Experts should be experts... For bronze age material, I don't think anyone from the modern era has any advantage by nationality over any other.

[Ian Absentia]

17 hours ago, JonL said:

If we don't get some Asian/Asian-descended writers involved, we're going to keep screwing Kralorela up , no matter how well intentioned or well researched the attempt.

If...

... your intent is to perpetuate Kralorela as analogue to Asia in general and China in particular.  And isn't that contrary to the recent effort to roll back the cultural shorthand of the '90s?

Rather, the development of Glorantha in general will benefit from a more culturally diverse field of writers and developers.

!I!

[JonL]

Just now, Shiningbrow said:

I'm not disagreeing with the content, but I do with the context.

I think it would be extremely difficult to find anyone who is not a devoted scholar on the subject to help out with a bronze age China. Modern Chinese are as far from "Kralorela" as most of us are from our very distant ancestors.

Experts should be experts... For bronze age material, I don't think anyone from the modern era has any advantage by nationality over any other.

WRT knowledge of ancient lore specifically, I don't disagree. While things like language barriers and access to key sources may be lower depending where you're starting out, a devoted and successful scholar (whether professional or arm-chair) overcomes such things in whatever discipline.

Incorporating insider perspectives nonetheless helps with lots of subtle things you won't find in a book, museum, or journal; and most especially help avoid being part of ongoing problems in ways an outsider may not recognize.

A good resource for this stuff in particular is the Asians Represent Podcast, where Asian-descended RPG designers (including the aforementioned Ms. Cheng) talk about their experiences and have some very constructive and nuanced conversations. I was particularly impressed when after they gave some very on-point critiques of L5R, their next step was, "You know, lets play this together and figure out how to make it better."

[Jeff]

The last time I am going to say this - Kralorela is not the real Bronze Age China any more than Dragon Pass is the real Mycenaean Greece. It is the China of our myths - the Serica of Pliny and Ptolemy. 

That being said, big influences for me were Mark Lewis' "The Early Chinese Empires", Sawyer's "Ancient Chinese Warfare", Visually you can't go wrong with Watson's "Art of China to AD 900". and Li Feng's "Early China". And If I recall I had been reading Dalton's "Taming of Demons" and I'd be lying if I said that wasn't an influence. But at the end of the day, Kralorela is Glorantha (albeit pulled through those lenses, rather than through the Mahabharata, the sagas, and the Iliad) and not ancient China. Any more than Dara Happa is Babylonia or Assyria.

 

[JonL]

2 minutes ago, Jeff said:

The last time I am going to say this - Kralorela is not the real Bronze Age China any more than Dragon Pass is the real Mycenaean Greece. It is the China of our myths - the Serica of Pliny and Ptolemy. 

That being said, big influences for me were Mark Lewis' "The Early Chinese Empires", Sawyer's "Ancient Chinese Warfare", Visually you can't go wrong with Watson's "Art of China to AD 900". and Li Feng's "Early China". And If I recall I had been reading Dalton's "Taming of Demons" and I'd be lying if I said that wasn't an influence. But at the end of the day, Kralorela is Glorantha (albeit pulled through those lenses, rather than through the Mahabharata, the sagas, and the Iliad) and not ancient China. Any more than Dara Happa is Babylonia or Assyria.

 

Without disputing that, as you obviously know your own process, things like this...

... along with Mandarins etc. can connect to hassles with monolithic representation and stereotypes that Asian-descended people who have grown up in North America or Europe face in ways that than ancient Mesopotamian imagery does not present for Middle-Eastern-descended people.

The latter of course have their own struggles too, but a Dara Happan dressed like Senacherib doesn't bring those into play. We don't have Babylonian equivalents of Emperor Ming of Mongo(lia) knocking around our culture, nor a show like Daredevil where all the JapaneseIraqi characters on the show are criminal NinjasChariot-archers, but the white lead is better at NinjustuChariot-archery than any of them. 

None of that is Glorantha's/Greg's/Jan's/your fault, but the surrounding context is out there and is part of the impact regardless of how creators might intend for things to be received.

[Qizilbashwoman]

44 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Kralorela is not the real Bronze Age China any more than Dragon Pass is the real Mycenaean Greece. It is the China of our myths - the Serica of Pliny and Ptolemy. 

Respectfully, Jeff, Kralorela supplements use the chopsticks font, the names are faux-Mandarin, and the society is faux-Ming-Qing with mandarins.

If we're gonna make it Not Real Bronze Age China we have to fix this with a really big hammer. It's demonstrably driven people away. Shang China was men and women rulers, soldiers in bronze armor, wheeled chariots, cavalry, shamans of divine ancestor cults and river spirits, human sacrifice, and really amazing myths about the sun being murdered... Very good Gloranthan stuff to start with and then riffing off of. And using Gloranthan-style names would help immensely instead of faux-Mandarin.

Sarah Allan's The Shape of the Turtle talks about Shang and Zhou mythic ideas, which are really weird compared to what we consider "Chinese"

Edited July 26, 2019 by Qizilbashwoman

[davecake]

The Guide is certainly very clear on what The Emperor (Godunya) doesn’t do - actually have much to do with government or take an active role in the state. 

“The emperor is rarely involved in mundane matters of state; court policy is made by exarchs, eunuchs, and mandarins, and imperial politics are decided by the effective central administration.”

what he does do (provide authentic dragon power that can be devolved to the Exarchs, every so often fight a war in heaven, provide a path to salvation for much of the populace, etc) is implied, but demonstrates his importance. 

 

[scott-martin]

Hmmm!

Edited July 26, 2019 by scott-martin

[Joerg]

3 minutes ago, JonL said:

Without disputing that, as you obviously know your own process, things like this...

... along with Mandarins etc. can connect to hassles with monolithic representation and stereotypes that Asian-descended people who have grown up in North America or Europe face in ways that than ancient Mesopotamian imagery does not present for Middle-Eastern-descended people.

That's about as pertinent as the crazy "Irish only" associations of the term Celts in Anglophone environments.

Quite a lot of writers push (or pushed) for a wuxia-style area in Glorantha, and since there are dojos (transliteration from Japanese, btw, otherwise it would have to be e.g. daochang with weird wiggles whose pronunciation rules are unknown to me), Kralorela got that.

I'll freely admit that I consume a bit of manga and manhwa, preferably with fantasy and mythological themes, and there are some with a fairly high standard of storytelling between those combat sequences or similar manga conventions (about as unavoidable as the musical scenes in Disney or Bollywood). The target audience has a good overlap with the target audience for rpgs. And if you look at the approach of these mangaka to the myths, you'll find some nuances you would have missed otherwise (often explained in the translations for those with just a fleeting acquaintance to the culture) and the same glaring mismatch of period and events as Xena, Malory/Excalibur or Hollywood in general. Plus shameless and usually out of context use of Western history, myth, religion and culture.

 

3 minutes ago, JonL said:

The latter of course have their own struggles too, but a Dara Happan dressed like Senacherib doesn't bring those into play. We don't have Babylonian equivalents of Emperor Ming of Mongo(lia) knocking around our culture, nor a show like Daredevil where all the JapaneseIraqi characters on the show are criminal NinjasChariot-archers, but the white lead is better at NinjustuChariot-archery than any of them. 

Show me a game dealing with the first half of last century that doesn't depict Germans (and especially German soldiers) as kill-on-sight cannon fodder as a rule, and I might cede you a point. I have seen (and written) more human depictions of orcs than the stereotypes that Anglophone culture has for mine. (I'll admit to quite a number of German stereotypes as somewhat accurate for describing me, but neither Nazi nor Commie ones.)

Is it grating, does it stink of revanchism and colonialism? Sure it does.

Try watching a Karl May western movie...

 

3 minutes ago, JonL said:

None of that is Glorantha's/Greg's/Jan's/your fault, but the surrounding context is out there and is part of the impact regardless of how creators might intend for things to be received.

Things that appear similar on first glance but then aren't has been a topic in Gloranthan discussions for more than 25 years.

FIrst Knight (the flick with Connery) and knights are as ridiculous for Arthurian legend as they are for Glorantha. Still, heavy cavalry is a Gloranthan fact and has been since before its publication, something which the Bronze Age didn't have any more than it had blackpoweder weapons.

If one insists on historically exact Bronze Age China as the main influence, then I want my Nordic Bronze Age and Hallstatt as the authoritative Orlanthi dress back. Which means pants, a style of clothing available in the mesolithic.

 

1 minute ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Respectfully, Jeff, Kralorela supplements use the chopsticks font, the names are faux-Mandarin, and the society is faux-Ming-Qing with mandarins.

There have been no Kralorela supplements by either Issaries, MoonDesign or Chaosium that used a different font for Kralorela, and it is more than weird to accuse the publisher for fan publication or unsupervised licensee publication font choices.

 

1 minute ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

If we're gonna make it Not Real Bronze Age China we have to fix this with a really big hammer. It's demonstrably driven people away.

Ducks have driven people away. So has insisting on "it's Bronze Age," or changes to (or introduction of) Vinga and Elmal.

And people have been driven away by abrasion with other people.

The tribe is a great but also difficult community, with a lot of creative people who often get hurt when their creative input (subjectively) gets trampled on or plowed under.

 

1 minute ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

Shang China was men and women rulers, soldiers in bronze armor, wheeled chariots, cavalry, shamans of divine ancestor cults and river spirits, human sacrifice, and really amazing myths about the sun being murdered... Very good Gloranthan stuff to start with and then riffing off of.

Wheeled chariots in a celestial pantheon culture... even in Glorantha, that's mostly a thing of the past. Terrestrial Bronze Age left those mostly behind before the Mediterranean/Near East Bronze Age collapse, and there is no evidence for war chariots in central European or Nordic Bronze Age. We have some Iron Age usage on the remote western islands (Britannia, Hibernia) while the contemporary continental Celts were renowned (or at least regularly hired) for their horse-riding.

Have you had a look at Revealed Mythologies?

 

1 minute ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

And using Gloranthan-style names would help immensely instead of faux-Mandarin.

Using names indistinguishable from Praxian or Orlanthi names would help? How so?

 

[JonL]

44 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Show me a game dealing with the first half of last century that doesn't depict Germans (and especially German soldiers) as kill-on-sight cannon fodder as a rule, and I might cede you a point. I have seen (and written) more human depictions of orcs than the stereotypes that Anglophone culture has for mine. (I'll admit to quite a number of German stereotypes as somewhat accurate for describing me, but neither Nazi nor Commie ones.)

Oh, I'm aware. While I'm from the US, my parents' last names are/were "Hertzog" and "Laufersweiler" (I hope to visit Laufersweiler some day). Nonetheless "No Germans" is not a common tag on dating app profiles, nobody has ever accused me of only being hired because of affirmative action, Germans here have not faced housing discrimination in living memory, most of our heritage foods are considered normal, even if Germans characters are often baddies, most protagonists in TV & movies look like me, I've never heard a rumor about a German restaurant serving stray cats & dogs, children don't pass a mocking silly sing-song language off as German on the playground, and nobody assumes I have an inadequate penis because of my last name.

For you (I presume, please forgive me if I'm wrong) and I, prejudicial stereotypes in media are an unpleasant annoyance. For others, they're part of a much more painful bigger picture. A friend once likened it to The Death of a Thousand Cuts. 

Edited July 26, 2019 by JonL

[soltakss]

20 hours ago, JonL said:

If we don't get some Asian/Asian-descended writers involved, we're going to keep screwing Kralorela up , no matter how well intentioned or well researched the attempt.

Kralorela is not Mythic Cathay, so doesn't need to have any East Asian influences, really. I know that it has been portrayed as being like Cathay in the past, but that doesn;t mean it has to be the same in the future.

In any case, I really dispute that you have to be from a culture to write RPG supplements about that culture. Doubly so if the RPG supplement isn't even about that culture, but is based on a mishmash of different ideas from different cultures.

 

[Leingod]

54 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Wheeled chariots in a celestial pantheon culture... even in Glorantha, that's mostly a thing of the past. Terrestrial Bronze Age left those mostly behind before the Mediterranean/Near East Bronze Age collapse, and there is no evidence for war chariots in central European or Nordic Bronze Age. We have some Iron Age usage on the remote western islands (Britannia, Hibernia) while the contemporary continental Celts were renowned (or at least regularly hired) for their horse-riding.

Well, China's Bronze Age lasted longer than it did in the West. To the best of my knowledge, this happened because Chinese territory at that time was one of the few places in the world where you didn't have to cross half a continent to get either copper or tin, meaning they weren't as dependent on extensive trade networks whose breakdown in the Bronze Age Collapse forced people to adopt iron (which was harder to work with and was at first inferior to bronze), which meant that China didn't have to make the changeover until they could reliably make high-quality iron and steel weapons and tools in relatively large quantities.

Similarly in China, chariots were only phased out in favor of cavalry much later, and they in fact reached their peak of use during the Spring & Autumn Period (~771-476 BC), and the process of phasing them out more or less entirely as military units was only complete somewhere toward the end of the Han Dynasty. As late 119 AD, Chinese generals like Wei Qing were making use of chariots in war even against horse nomads like the Xiongnu (in this case, supposedly by using a ring formation of heavily-armored chariots as a mobile fortress). So while cavalry had certainly supplanted chariots in the leading role (relegating chariots mostly to a support role), the full changeover from chariots to horses wasn't completed until well into the ADs in China.

So, you know, the trajectory of moving on from bronze and chariots to iron/steel and horse cavalry is yet another thing in history that didn't take place all at once and in the same ways and at the same time. So it wouldn't beggar belief to me if at least one culture is still using chariots as a major component of their military, and not as a result of backwardness or isolation.

Edited July 26, 2019 by Leingod

[JonL]

19 minutes ago, soltakss said:

In any case, I really dispute that you have to be from a culture to write RPG supplements about that culture.

That's not what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is that if you do so without any involvement or feedback from people who are from that culture, you're probably going to make some mistakes.

If this is done in an environment where members of the referenced culture are also subject to institutional/societal Racism, those mistakes will probably replicate some of the crap from that surrounding environment, even if unknowingly, and in a small way be part of the bigger problem.

So why not take steps to avoid that, and likely make for a better game at the same time?

There's no downside that I can see.
 

Edited July 26, 2019 by JonL

[albinoboo]

12 minutes ago, JonL said:

That's not what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is that if you do so without any involvement or feedback from people who are from that culture, you're probably going to make some mistakes.

If this is done in an environment where members of the referenced culture are also subject to institutional/societal Racism, those mistakes will probably replicate some of the crap from that surrounding environment, even if unknowingly, and in a small way be part of the bigger problem.

So why not take steps to avoid that, and likely make for a better game at the same time?

There's no downside that I can see.
 

Your position is that the creative act cannot be valid unless you have the right colour of skin.